I’ve been chomping at the bit to write this entry, but I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time. My life was changed by an article I read in, I think, 1997 and I want to share that wisdom with you. It really doesn’t seem like a magazine that would give you a profound “paradigm” shift, but I found the article in Men’s Health. I don’t remember exactly when it was written, and I don’t remember who wrote it. I wish I could include a link. The title was something to the effect of: “The Stress Myth”. Here’s the gist: Stress is a modern myth; it is a sort of urban legend. There is no such thing as stress, and just by using the word we are making our lives miserable.
As I said, this article changed my life. At one time, our fear kept us alive. Healthy fear of an animal that we are hunting could suddenly hunt us back makes sense. Today, we don’t get hunted too often. Still, we live in fear. Fear of losing our job, our house, or our wife. We live in fear that the pinch we feel on our left side is actually a heart attack. We live in fear that this is all there is, and life won’t get better. You get the point. The problem is we identify this unidentified feeling as stress, because it doesn’t make sense that it would be fear. All we have to fear, is fear itself.
Amazingly enough, stress related disease is everywhere. Heart disease, cancer, even obesity has it’s roots in “stress”. According to http://www.eqhelp.com/: “75% of the health problems presented to Medical Doctors in the United States are stress related illness, caused by emotional stress (statistic from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).”
I’ve brought up before the phrase “What is bothering you right at this moment?” As a lesson my Martial Arts instructor brought up about grappling. If you were to ask people what bothers them most about their job, most people would say their boss… right behind that answer would probably be the job “stress.” So WHAT’S BOTHERING YOU RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT? If it’s stress, you can’t fight it. Stress is just this feeling of pressure that comes from all sides. You can meditate and learn to deal with it’s never ending pressure. You can vacation from it, so for one out of 52 weeks a year you get to “relax”.
There is another option. Address the root of the problem. If you are under stress, what is stressing you out? Hard to answer right? Let’s try to address it per my “stress is a myth” philosophy. What are you afraid of?
I’m afraid of losing my job and not being able to pay off bills, hence losing everything.
Solution – Start saving for that rainy day. Open a special savings account and pop a little in every month. Update your resume. Start working your social network. Reduce your cost of living. Have a smaller house and therefore a smaller mortgage.
I’m afraid of failing at my job.
Solution – Work to improve yourself at your job. Ask you peers, your boss, and your underlings what you aren’t good at. Then educate yourself on the issues that come up. Then, try a brain game. What is the worst thing that could happen to you if you fail at your job? I work in a dangerous area. If I make the wrong call it could cost someone their life. But I’m very careful about that aspect of my job, and I’ve worked very hard to make myself an expert at avoiding that from happening. If the worst thing that could happen is you lose your job, see above.
I’m afraid my boss will yell at me.
Solution – see above. If the worst thing that can happen to you if you fail at your job is that your boss yells at you, well you are probably lucky. Still, it is a reasonable fear. You have to find a way of dealing with that fear. Even if it’s listening to your colleague being chewed out by the boss and thinking “hey, he’s getting paid to have his boss scream at him. Even though he’s not doing work… this can’t be too bad.”
My point is, I’ve been complaining about work for a while… and I’ve been unable to identify what my problem is. I think if you have been reading this blog you understand that I’m a person that is afraid of a lot of things. So if I should do some deep soul searching, I would probably find that the above issues aren’t just random examples… or who knows, maybe it’s just stress.
